Non-surgical Periodontal Therapy with Either Amoxicillin and Metronidazole or aPDT

Objectives: To clinically evaluate the outcomes of non-surgical periodontal treatment and additional use of either systemic antibiosis (AB) or antibacterial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) in patients with chronic periodontitis (CP).
Methods: 32 participants diagnosed with CP were randomly treated as follows: a) subgingival scaling and root planing (SRP) followed by systemic administration of 375mg Amoxicillin and 250mg Metronidazole 3x daily for one week or b) SRP followed by 2x aPDT during 1 week. The following parameters were evaluated at baseline and at 6 months: probing pocket depth (PPD), clinical attachment level (CAL), gingival recession (GR), bleeding on probing (BOP) and plaque index Silness & Löe (PI). Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS (IBM SPSS statistics V23, USA).
Results: No adverse effects related to the rendered treatments were observed during the entire observation period. One participant was lost during the study (1 dropout). At baseline, no statistically significant differences were observed in any of the investigated parameters between the two groups (p>0.05). At 6 months, mean PPD decreased in the AB group from 4.99 ± 0.62 mm to 3.22 ± 0.44 mm (≤0.001) and from 4.91 ± 0.78 mm to 3.51 ± 0.62 mm in the aPDT group (≤0.001). The PPD reduction in the AB group was, however, statistically significantly higher compared to that in the aPDT group (p=0.03). Both treatment resulted in statistically significant CAL gain at 6 months, without any statistically significant differences between the groups (p=0.419). In both groups mean BOP and PI were statistically significantly reduced compared to baseline (≤0.001), however without statistically significant differences between the groups.
Conclusions: Compared to baseline, both treatments resulted in statistically significant improvements of all investigated parameters. Treatment with AB yielded, however, statistically significantly higher PPD reduction compared to the application of aPDT.